Long John Baldry

Back in the early 60s John sang with seminal British blues bands Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and Cyril Davies R&B All Stars. Following Cyril Davies's untimely death in 1964, John took over the band, rechristened them The Hoochie Coochie Men, and for a while featured his newest 'discovery', a youthful Rod Stewart.

Southampton's Concorde Club was a regular venue for John during the mid-60s blues boom.

"They were great days, a lot of fun, though the travelling was hard," he remembers.

"We played just about every night of the week, sometimes two or three gigs a night.

"We earned about £50 a gig - a hell of a lot of money in those days. I paid the band on a weekly basis. I think Rod was on £30 a week. It doesn't sound a lot, but he saved every penny and managed to buy his first house on it." In July 1965 John and Rod teamed up with Brian Auger and his band, plus singer Julie Driscoll, to form The Steam Packet.

"The band only lasted a year. People always think it was longer because of the impact it had.

"The main problem was that we couldn't record as we all had contracts with different record labels. Much to our chagrin, someone put out a bootleg recorded at rehearsals on a two-track Grundig. It was embarrassingly awful, but sold well though we never saw a dime out of that!" Steam Packet gradually ran out of steam and John's next big break was a complete accident.

"Pye Records approached me in 1967 and teamed me up with a young songwriter called Tony McAuley who wrote a bunch of songs for me.

"One of them was a ballad called Let the Heartaches Begin which hit number one in the charts in November of that year.

"I still get royalty cheques for it once or twice a year, it's on so many 60s compilation albums." The hits dried up after Mexico in 1968 and John relocated first to New York, then to Los Angeles.

"I spent a year in each place and they both drove me nuts. Living in New York was like watching a film at double speed, and the fact that I never learned to drive was a hindrance in Los Angeles.

"I suppose I'm a Brit at heart. The pace was all far too fast in America."

John moved to Vancouver, Canada in 1976.

"I still feel very much at home there. It still has a very British influence to it, though most Canadians wouldn't admit it.

"I rent a huge apartment above a futon store where I have a roof garden full of roses and shrubs in containers, with meditation areas and a booze-up area.

"I'll never come back to the UK to live. I couldn't afford it - everything costs about three times as much as it does in Canada."

Although John considers himself primarily a musician and singer, he has made more money from voice-overs and acting roles over the last 20 years. "It's now my main source of income. It's tough earning a living as a musician, and it's handy to have a second career.

"Since 1980 I've done loads of voice-overs for advertisements, a few acting roles in television series and films, and since the early 1990s I've done the voice for a Sonic the Hedgehog character called Robotnik - I've done 94 episodes of that." John is still glad that he gave up a career in graphic art to sing the blues.

"Although I originally had a career mapped out in commercial art I was singing around London in the evening.

"I would have eventually been a wreck so I gave up the job to sing the blues."

Singing the blues has taken John all over the world. But the 6ft 7in singer has paid the price.

"I recently had a hip replacement operation - a penalty for being tall and spending hours on planes with my legs cramped up in sardine-can seats."

You can see Long John Baldry at The Anvil, Basingstoke on 5 October. Tickets cost £13.50. Box office: 01256 844244.